検索キーワード： 16世紀

Una sera di settembre del 1533 Isabella d’Este, quasi sessantenne, rievoca la propria vicenda: dall’infanzia a Ferrara al matrimonio, sedicenne, con il marchese Francesco Gonzaga, e poi la vita a Mantova dove, in un periodo tra i più tumultuosi e fulgidi della storia, nei primi decenni del Cinquecento, resse con grande sapienza politica le fila del piccolo Stato costruendo attorno a sé una corte di ineguagliato splendore, tra pittori poeti musicisti astrologi condottieri papi e imperatori.

On July 12, 1588, the legendary Spanish Armada headed for the English Channel. The Spanish plan was to take this invasion, led by the Duke of Parma, to the coast of southeast England, where they would be unleashed to conquer Elizabethan England for Spain’s King Philip II and Catholic Christendom. The Armada included over 150 ships, 8,000 sailors, and 18,000 soldiers, and it boasted a firepower of 1,500 brass guns and 1,000 iron guns. Just leaving port itself took the entire Armada two days.

The Spanish Empire was the first truly global empire and the first to be described as one on which “the sun never sets.” It rapidly grew to become one of the largest and most powerful empires in the history of the world and brought us goods such as potatoes, chocolate, and chewing gum.

When we think of the Renaissance, we often think of paintings. And indeed, many painters and sculptors were part of the artistic transformation the Renaissance caused. But there was more. The Renaissance basically formed a period of collective enlightenment and freedoms that put an end to certain tyrannies and false notions from the Middle Ages. Advocates of a "long Renaissance" might put its start in the 14th century and its end in the 17th century. Let’s take a look at what the extensive time period of the Renaissance provided, and what it leaves us with today.

King at 9 and dead at 15, Edward VI oversaw a brief but dramatic chapter in English history. Described by his father as his "most precious jewel", Edward’s birth in 1537 marked the end of Henry VIII’s quest to procure a son and heir to continue the Tudor dynasty. But even kings can’t choose their destiny, and the boy’s premature demise prevented the intelligent, ambitious, and strong-minded youth’s potential from being fulfilled. Reliant on councillors to govern the kingdom on his behalf, his reign was not a happy time.

In the fifteenth century, even before the city states of the Apennine Peninsula began to coalesce into what would become, several centuries later, a nation, "Italy" exerted enormous influence over all of Europe and throughout the Mediterranean. Viewing the Italy (the many Italies?) of that time through the lens of today allows us to gather a fragmented, multi-faceted, and seemingly contradictory history into a single unifying narrative that speaks to our current reality as much as it does to a specific historical period. This is what the French historian Fernand Braudel achieves here.

Brought to you by Penguin. Told for the very first time is the true story of the secret royal family. Each Tudor monarch made their name with a Dudley by their side - or by crushing one beneath their feet. The Dudleys thrived at the court of Henry VII, but were sacrificed to the popularity of...

The Teutonic Knights were powerful and ferocious advocates of holy war. Their history is suffused with crusading, campaigning, and struggle. Feared by their enemies but respected by medieval Christendom, the knights and their Order maintained a firm hold over the Baltic and Northern Germany and established a formidable regime that flourished across Central Europe for 300 years. William Urban's narrative charts the rise and fall of the Order and, in an accessible and engaging style, throws light on a band of knights whose deeds and motives have long been misunderstood. 

Long before the indigenous people of southeastern North America first encountered Europeans and Africans, they established communities with clear social and political hierarchies and rich cultural traditions. Award-winning historian Gregory D. Smithers brings this world to life in Native Southerners, a sweeping narrative of American Indian history in the Southeast from the time before European colonialism to the Trail of Tears and beyond.

Cabeza de Vaca was part of a 1527 Spanish expedition to explore the region north of the Gulf of Mexico. His group lost contact with their ships, and traveled on foot across Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico for the next eight years. This work, written in 1542 as an official report to the king of Spain, is a rich source of information on the ancient Southwest: the indigenous people, the climate, and the flora and fauna.

The man who came to be known as Yasuke arrived in Japan in the 16th century, an indentured mercenary arriving upon one of the Portuguese ships carrying a new language, a new religion and an introduction to the slave trade. Curiously tall, bald, massively built and black skinned, he was known as a steadfast bodyguard of immense strength and stature, swiftly capturing the interest and thence the trust, of the most powerful family in all of Japan. Two years later, he vanished.

The Spanish Conquest: What really happened? If you like to use your drive time for education by audiobook, consider this audiobook for widening and deepening your view of an event you studied briefly in school - the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Conquistador Voices, neither glamorizes nor condemns the conquistadors. Somewhat in the manner of a modern film documentary, it treats the so-called conquest as an historical event that’s worth learning about for its own sake, with most of the moralizing left to the listener.

France, 1685. Jeanne is the wife of a wealthy merchant, but now she risks losing everything. Louis XIV’s soldiers will stop at nothing to forcibly convert the country’s Huguenot "heretics" to the "true" faith. The men ransack Jeanne’s belongings and threaten to take her children. One by one, Jeanne watches her neighbors cave under the constant harassment.

Henry VIII is best known in history for his tempestuous marriages and the fates of his six wives. However, as acclaimed historian Tracy Borman makes clear in her illuminating new chronicle of Henry’s life, his reign and reputation were hugely influenced by the men who surrounded and interacted with him as companions and confidants, servants and ministers, and occasionally as rivals - many of whom have been underplayed in previous biographies.

Philip II is not only the most famous king in Spanish history, but one of the most famous monarchs in English history: the man who married Mary Tudor and later launched the Spanish Armada against her sister Elizabeth I. This compelling biography of the most powerful European monarch of his day begins with his conception (1526) and ends with his ascent to Paradise (1603), two occurrences surprisingly well documented by contemporaries. Eminent historian Geoffrey Parker draws on four decades of research on Philip as well as a recent, extraordinary archival discovery - a trove of 3,000 documents in vaults in New York City....

La aventura de Vasco de Gama que le llevó a las Indias através del cabo de Buena Esperanza abrió una guerra por el control de las especias y por el control estratégico mundial que concluiría con la gesta de Magallanes y Elcano: la expedición que dio, a ciegas, la primera vuelta al mundo.

Anne Boleyn is perhaps the most engaging of Henry VIII’s Queens. For her he would divorce his wife of some 20 years standing, he would take on the might of the Roman Church and the Holy Roman Empire; he would even alienate his own people in order to win her favour and, eventually, her hand.

This is the story of Elizabeth I's inner circle and the crucial human relationships which lay at the heart of her personal and political life. Using a wide range of original sources - including private letters, portraits, verse, drama, and state papers - Susan Doran provides a vivid and often dramatic account of political life in Elizabethan England and the queen at its center.

In Redeeming "The Prince", one of the world's leading Machiavelli scholars puts forth a startling new interpretation of arguably the most influential but widely misunderstood book in the Western political tradition. Overturning popular misconceptions and challenging scholarly consensus, Maurizio Viroli also provides a fresh introduction to the work. Seen from this original perspective, five centuries after its composition, The Prince offers new insights into the nature and possibilities of political liberation.

During the spring of 1536 in Tudor England, events conspire to bring down Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England. The coup against the Queen results in the brutal executions of six innocent people - Anne Boleyn herself, her brother, and four courtiers - and the rise of a new Queen. Drawing on 16th-century letters, eye witness accounts, and chronicles, Claire Ridgway leads the listener through the sequence of chilling events one day at a time, telling the true story of Anne Boleyn's fall.